Mention the name Jack the Ripper in a crowd. Watch everyone go silent
for a moment, waiting for more news, or for the proper moment to
digress about his or her own pet theories about the man who taught a
city to fear the coming of the night.

The name alone summons up horrific murders and the foggy streets of
19th-century Victorian London. For over a hundred years, the public has
been interested in the identity of the murderer of at least five
prostitutes in the Whitechapel area. The study of the arcane and bloody
murders has become a science unto itself, creating a field of
professionals that pride themselves on being called Ripperologists.

The menu on Disc One opens up with the explosive beating of a heart.
The rhythm isn’t a staccato hammering of pure fear, but the beat is
definitely elevated and charged with adrenaline. The beat sets the tone
for the viewing experience after the Play button is hit.

Chapter 1 opens with the hiss of rain coming from all the speakers,
then the icon explosion announcing sound by THX. The rain hiss reaches
a more vibrant level, then melds into the snarl of a match catching
flame, then the sibilant kiss of a lover as the flame is passed onto a
candle wick. This simple act, hardwired with surround sound, definitely
gets the viewer’s attention. As the opium preparation concludes,
thunder hammers from the center and main speakers, building until the
noise wakes the subwoofer to booming life.

The mournful voice of a train opens Chapter 2 and the viewer is
suddenly immersed in the nightlife that haunted London during the
ultra-conservative reign of Queen Victoria. At the time, though the
film doesn’t go into all the political and economic reasons for the
population boom, London is nearly buried in a morass of humanity.

During the Napoleonic Wars early in the 19th century, huge numbers of
men went off to war, leaving women and children to take over the men’s
jobs as England became the king of world industry. More people left the
countryside to live in the city, believing the promise of growing
industry was better than scrabbling a living out of a failing farm. The
Crimean War in the middle of that century caused another interruption,
which left women and children destitute and without jobs when the men
returned home. Since the men were barely able to feed themselves, few
of them had any desire to get married. Many women turned to
prostitution just to eat and provide sheter for themselves.

The story picks up with Mary Kelly, who was the last of the Ripper’s
known victims, as students of Jack’s handiwork will note. Already, a
ticking clock is in place, and time is counting down toward Mary’s
death. The industrial city scenes throughout the film are excellent,
giving a good representation of what it must have been like to live in
London while smokestacks poured pollution into the air nearly 24 hours
a day.

Mary Kelly is plying her trade, and as she walks through the street, an
undercurrent of voices, coach wheels and hooves beating against
cobblestones streams without pause from the surround sound system. The
viewer feels as though he or she is walking that same street with Mary,
hurrying to avoid getting run down. The clink of a pushcart at one
point is a unique noise. When Mary steps into an alley and gets
threatened by one of the local hoods, the sounds drift away from the
center speaker(s) to the mains and then diminish, underscoring the
impression that she’s far from help and vulnerable.

Chapter 3 gives the audience a look at London in the day. The lot of
Mary and her fellow prostitutes haven’t improved any, but the city
looks at least a little more friendly and optimistic. The constant
hammering of construction going on that issues from the front speakers,
lending authenticity to the city’s growth. During an early scene of the
abduction of Annie Crook and her artist husband Albert, the crash of
destruction fires up the surround sound. The scene cuts are marked by
detonations that blast out of the subwoofer. Only a short time later,
night descends over the city again, and the sound is magnified by the
flickering whisper of the gas streetlamp.

Abberline lies in an opium-induced stupor, "chasing the dragon" as the
vice was known at the time. We learn that the Scotland Yard inspector
has visions of a psychic nature while drugged. Birds fly around him,
and the liquid sound of the Ripper’s knife blade hacking through flesh
rolls from the speakers. Abberline’s heartbeat picks up the pace,
growing louder as he witnesses the violent scene.

Later in the vision, the squeaks of rats echo all around the viewer,
making us believe for a moment that we are seated inside a room filled
with rodents. The buzz of flies thunders from the speakers.

Switching back to the action in the opium den, the doors explode open
with enhanced audio. When Abberline is thrust face-first into a bowl of
water, the underwater bubbling sounds rumble through the subwoofer.
From there, the viewer is taken into the police surgeon’s morgue, and
the rasp of a sponge against dead flesh comes through strong and clear.

The scene changes in Chapter 5 to the sanitarium where Annie Crook is
being kept. The audience watches as Sir William Gull takes a group of
students into the observation room to watch as a young doctor performs
a lobotomy on Annie. The crunch of the hammer smashing the blade
through her skull and into her brain is particularly hard to take.
Later in the chapter, Mary and her friends meet in the local pub,
called Ten Bells, and the undercurrent of conversations carried by the
main and rear speakers makes us feel as though we are sitting in on the
discussion.

Chapter 6 depicts the first murder. When the woman goes down under the
Ripper’s blade, her hand drags along a dirty window with a shriek of
movement that comes through clearly and creepily on the surround sound
system. Then the subwoofer kicks in again as a storm pushes into the
city.

A police officer discovers the body the next day. The scene shows great
moves with the elapsed time shot, and even provides the police whistles
echoing in the background to better create the overall tone. When
Abberline arrives only a few moments later, the audience sees Scotland
Yard go into full investigative mode. The camera flashes throb through
the speakers, brushing up against the subwoofer’s tolerances. The
retching sounds of the police surgeon and his assistant are
particularly loud and realistic in the domed room where they work.

The stripped-bare grape stem Abberline finds at the scene is one of the
most telling clues. The burning streetlamps in another scene make
sounds like long, drawn-out sighs. Later, while bathing, Abberline
drinks absinthe, and the audience gets another view inside one of his
visions. This one is combined with a character reveal and memory, and
the voices in the vision burble and echo like a stream through pebbles.

At a funeral in Chapter 9, a bird flies across the screen, and the
sound moves into the left main speaker before disappearing. Later in
the chapter, the four women are kicked out of their rented room, again
reminding the audience how brutal and hard the lives of the women are.

Chapter 10 holds the scratchy and familiar sound of a gramophone. As
the Ripper cuts through his dinner, the noise of the silverware is
unexpectedly loud, drawing even more attention to the bloody meat the
killer is eating. A bell bongs, rolling through the surround sound
system and setting the coach driver and the Ripper to work. The horses’
hooves echo along the bridge and the audience is treated to another
magnificent shot of London. The clank of the coach’s steps unfurling
detonates from the center and main speakers, echoing in the subwoofer.
By now the sound is a threatening one, like the swish of a guillotine’s
blade. Later, when Dark Annie Chapman perishes beneath the Ripper’s
unforgiving blade, the sound of a passing train rips through the
speakers and the subwoofer, pushing the audience’s adrenaline up with
it.

In Chapter 11, voices crying out to see the murder scene issue from the
main and rear speakers, making the audience feel that we are in the
middle of the investigation and the attention. The tarp the police use
to hide the corpse cracks and whips through the front and center
speakers.

A struck match, by now a familiar and effective signature note in the film, flares to life opens Chapter 13.

Chapter 14 provides a beautiful shot of Buckingham Palace. When a coach
moves across the screen, the sound of the ironbound wheels rolling over
the cobblestones runs through the mains and center speaker from left to
right. Another night falls over the city, and the audience gets another
terrific sight of the great metropolis.

Chapter 15 offers another confrontation. The street scene echoes with
the voices of the night. An assault is explosive, shuddering through
the subwoofer for added effect. Later, Mary’s silverware clinking
against the soup bowl provides a sharp counterpoint to the calm
conversation she shares with the inspector in the middle of the other
hubbub.

During a fire the "whoosh" of a flaming barrel rolling across the scene
is a liquid rush through the speakers, and the resulting explosion
blasts through the subwoofer. As chaos breaks loose, the whistles of
the London Bobbies issue from all speakers, making the viewer feel as
though we’re in the middle of the street.

Chapter 17 begins with the rattle and squeak of a prison wagon rolling
into the Marylebone Work-House. A scene in a beautiful park has bird
calls and trickling water fountains echoing through the front speakers.

Chapter 19 shows an elevated train chugging across Pickering’s in the
day, and the street noises swirl through the surround sound system,
bringing the viewer into the heart of the neighborhood. Later,
disjointed voices roll through Abberline’s head as he reads letters
supposedly from Jack the Ripper. Chapter 20 hammers the viewer with the
sound of women fighting.

Chapter 21 echoes with the crash of horses’ hooves as an ominous coach
weaves through the city’s streets. Chapter 22 begins with the
threatening thunder of the coach’s steps unfurling. The sound is
quickly picked up by the arrival of a real storm that deluges the city.
The hiss of falling rain becomes a constant for the next chapter as
well.

The surround sound system kicks in again in an eerie manner as the
inspector has another vision that sets him into the final course for
confrontation against the Ripper. As Abberline staggers numbly out into
the street under a gas-powered streetlight, the hiss of the gas feeding
the flame rolls through the left main speaker in passing, making us
feel as though we are on the inspector’s heels.

The fourth murder takes place with blinding suddenness, and the blood
from the gaping neck wound gurgles from the center speaker(s) louder
than the rain falling in the mains. Abberline experiences more visions,
and the muted, underwater effect streams through the main and center
speakers.

When Abberline uses his special gifts while actively pursuing Ripper,
the liquid pulse of the grapes in the vision is that of a heart, and
underscores the deadly game as well as Abberline’s obvious intention to
continue playing.

Chapter 27 contains an explosive series of scenes. The crash and tumble
of the coach screeches and thunders through the subwoofer, while the
frightened neighing of the horses issues from the main and center
speakers.

Finished with the killing, the Ripper descends into the darkest well of
madness. A voice that whispers to him comes from over his shoulder,
through the left main speaker in a matter that is totally unsettling.

The hunt isn’t over, though, because Abberline is more determined than
ever to bring the Ripper to justice. And there are still a number of
twists yet to go in the tangled skeins created by the story and the
Hughes Brothers’ touch with the camera.

As a two-disc set, "From Hell" offers a number of extras. The
commentary by the Hughes Brothers as well as the screenwriter and
cinematographer and Robbie Coltrane is excellent. But the offerings
really shine when hewing close to the bone of the Ripper mythos. The
interviews with noted Ripperologists and the tour of the crime scenes
draw in the audience that invests the time to watch them. The special,
hosted by Heather Graham, is particularly entertaining, as is the
discussions of Alan Moore’s graphic novel that spawned the film. The
deleted scenes are very nice, and the opening scene of Shanghai that
was cut from the film is extremely beautiful.

"From Hell" is an elegant film that quickly and certainly weaves its
magic, transporting the viewer into the dark and dangerous nights of
Victorian England. For the serious collector who loves the atmosphere
emoted by the storyline, someone that enjoys the terrific imagery, or
Johnny Depp or Hughes Brothers fans, "From Hell" has to go on the
shelf. Moviegoers that enjoy suspense films, period pieces, a great
plotline filled with twists and turns, or striking imagery will enjoy
this movie.